We All Shine On: Supporting International Student Voices in an Academic Context

The primary aim of this research is to support English as an Additional Language (EAL) student oral communication on the campus of a small teaching and learning university on the West Coast of Canada, where students have reported experiencing language anxiety (LA), which is the apprehension that an interlocutor gets when engaging or preparing to engage in communication in a language that is not their mother tongue. Studies have reported that their LA can result in communication avoidance and impede language use. In this research, LA is associated with the variables described in theories around willingness to communicate (WTC), which includes group and personal factors. However, my findings uncovered other additional elements. The objectives of the study were two-fold: (i) to investigate the students’ perceptions of using English in their academic classes and other settings where language anxiety often arises; and (ii) to explore the students’ strategy use both before and during the study to lower their language anxiety and support communication. To achieve my research objectives, I conducted a qualitative exploratory study using action learning with 5 participants from different nationalities who were recruited by attending voluntary workshops on strategies for oral academic communication. Each participant was involved in five semi-structured interviews. During the first of the interviews the participants were asked to complete the Public Speaking Class Anxiety Scale (PSCAS) to assess their degree of language anxiety and note specific effects of language anxiety in need of attention. Significant answers were discussed. Next, participants were then asked to complete the Academic Spoken English Strategies Survey (ASESS), to subsequently choose a strategy as an intervention to utilize, and then note the results weekly. At second, third, and fourth interviews, the participants shared their experiences around their use of the intervention, any changes they made to the intervention, or significant experiences they had had in academic communication during the investigated period. They concluded the interviews by choosing to continue working on the same aspect of language anxiety with the same intervention, or to make changes and repeat the cycle. In the last interview, the participants completed the PSCAS again and discussed any changes revealed from the first to last interview. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the interview data. The findings revealed a high degree of strategy use before the study and the limited effect that additional strategy use had on reducing language anxiety and supporting corresponding oral communication during the study. Instead, speaking was primarily affected by intercultural relationships, individualized culture, and multilevel context. This led to reconsidering the WTC pyramid to incorporate these cultural and contextual variables; highlighting theories around small culture and their ultimate affect on community and connection; and noting significance of specific context, particularly the academic classroom, and its effect on identity, power and connection.

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